On Human Nature and Politics

[NYcarbineer]

Surely the impression you leave is one of an ignorant, dim-witted, pompous lefty who seems impressed by his own silliness. Carry on.

Would you like to defend her position? She can't. Her position is that there are no constitutional checks on executive power.

Go ahead. Show us how smart you and she are.

Her position is that the constitutional checks and balances are being negated by Executive Privilege. My position is no matter how smart you think you are, you don't understand the diff.

What 'executive privilege'? The President is being sued by Congress. Congress is going to get their day in court.

The ACA had to pass Congress, had to be signed by the President, and had to face a constitutional challenge before the judiciary. Where's the 'tyranny'? Where's the 'executive privilege'?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Thanks for nothing I want my 3 minutes of life back

I'll say this much for ya'.....you always try to find new ways to say 'I don't like you, and I hate what you post.'

It's just that you're such a bloody pontificator. Your posts reek of narcissism and self-gratification and of course sway off into the rightwing ditch after you so expertly steer them there.

Excellent!

You entered, stage Left, to verify exactly what I charged!

No doubt you've backed up your charges.......

(I'll cop to narcissism....)



Now, keep it down while I search for your examples of anything incorrect that I've posted....

Wait while I get my SEM/EDX electron microscope.....

 

[PoliticalChic]

she seems to be talking about the American Revolution and Robbeispire and actually trying to say that applies to todays liberals...or something.

Its as if, if one person says something in any period of time then it all applies to people today...or something

I see two partisan toadies celebrating their ignorance and inability to comprehend simple English, while attempting to blame their personal shortcomings on someone else.

Human nature has not changed for thousands of years. What was true about human nature in 1776, is still true today, and yes, it does apply to all people, including liberal/socialists. It has been expressed by many different philosophers, from many different cultures, at many different times, and in many different ways, but it all means the same. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Failure to understand that simple truth, puts a person, and/or a nation in jeopardy. Any person put in a position of trust must be carefully watched and controlled, because the human tendency is to take advantage of that trust and use it to benefit themselves and their friends.

Our founders, recognizing the danger of concentrated political power, devised a means of spreading political power to the states and among three branches of the federal government. Liberal/socialists have spend decades attempting to concentrate political power at the federal level. It is as if they never read a history book.

I am glad that someone believes that Abe Lincoln was a liberal socialist....

He nailed ya,' didn't he.


"toadie"......

 

[PoliticalChic]

Did you not call Obama's executive actions the very definition of tyranny?

tyranny - arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power

...and yet, Congress is suing the President, and talking about impeaching him...both of which they have the legal right to do.

How can it be tyranny, the 'unrestrained exercise of power', if that power can in fact be restrained by others in the government?

Can you answer that in 25 or less of YOUR OWN WORDS?

"...unrestrained exercise of power...."


Bingo!

So you do want to take the position that the Congress and the Supreme Court have no power to restrain the executive branch?

Can you cite any sources from your vast library of books you've pretended to have read to support that assertion?

".... you've pretended to have read...."

See, nycreature.....that's what's meant by 'we can only judge others by ourselves.'




I've posted many OPs to prove exactly that.....the Cliff Notes version is this: in direct opposition to the aims of the Founders, federalism, the three federal branches have worked assiduously to leave the states as mere agencies of the federal government.





In the vain hope that there may be actual education in your future, begin your research with this:

In 1801, John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice, and he consistently tried to reduce any limits on federal power. Case in point, in the 1821 decision in Cohens v. Virginia, he found that the 11th amendment only banned suits against states that were initiated in federal courts.

Nonsense: this was not the intent of the amendment, but rather an intent to extend the jurisdiction of the federal courts and the federal government.


Marshall represents a pivotal point in the pirating of power by the federal government.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I'll say this much for ya'.....you always try to find new ways to say 'I don't like you, and I hate what you post.'

It's just that you're such a bloody pontificator. Your posts reek of narcissism and self-gratification and of course sway off into the rightwing ditch after you so expertly steer them there.

She's what happens when public libraries slack off on preventing the homeless from hanging out there all day.

Good to see that you've beat a hasty retreat from your earlier "books you've pretended to have read...'




I love making you Leftists so nervous that you argue with yourself.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I think leftists have absolutely no idea how the real world works and are scared shitless of liberty. How about we just abolish the Sixteenth Amendment altogether and scrap the IRS, given that the income tax system is the root of all the evils leftists go on about anyway . . . if, like the Tin Man, they only had a brain to grasp that.

On the contrary, liberals know exactly how the real world works, which is why they're the greatest advocates and defenders of liberty.

Needless to say liberals are most often defending citizens' civil rights from conservatives hostile to expressions of individual liberty.

Liberals are insane relativists. Progressives could never take the ideas of the Declaration and Constitution seriously for many of the same reasons that Obama cannot ultimately take them seriously. Not right but historical might was the Progressives’ true focus.

"Not right but historical might was the Progressives’ true focus."

And, their provenance!




16. When historians say ‘modern,’ they generally men the period beginning with the Enlightenment. In fact, many thinkers were so impressed with the scientific revolution that they began to regard science as the sole source of truth.

America was not based on the Enlightenment....the French Revolution was! The difference is the understanding of the nature of man: in the view of the American Revolution, people are not considered to be basically good, and, therefore, the necessity of checks and balances.

a. Look at the result of the two views: " One of the most advanced, sophisticated nations of the 18th century kills 600,000 citizens- many of it’s most valuable citizens, plus some 145,000 flee the country..."
Schom, “Napoleon Bonaparte,” p. 253.

b. "That's in a country with between 24 and 26 million people, about the current population of Texas. In terms of population loss, that would be the equalivalent of the United States having a 9/11 attack every day for seven years."
Coulter, "Demonic," p. 266.





17. It is more than passing interesting that liberals, whose history is that of the French Revolution, attempt to hide this by trying to portray the American Revolution as their inception. Let’s see, the American Revolution had the Minutemen, the ride of Paul Revere, the Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence and the Liberty Bell.

The French Revolution is identified by the Great Fear, the storming of the Bastille, the food riots, the march on Versailles, the Day of the Daggers, the de-Christianization campaign, the September Massacres, the beheading of Louis XVI, the beheading of Marie Antoinette, the Reign of Terror, then the guillotining of one revolutionary after another, until Robespierre got the “national razor.” That is, not including various lynchings, assassinations, insurrections….this was the four-year period known as the French Revolution.
Coulter, "Demonic," chapter six



a. The excesses, and thousands upon thousands of deaths and mutilations take no back seat to the Russian revolution, or Mao’s mayhem. This was not a revolution that was likely to end, as the American Revolution did, with the motto “Annuit Coepis” (He [God] has favored our undertakings) on its national seal.
Ibid.




French Revolution, Stalin, Mao.....so much in common with modern Liberals......

 

[SAYIT]

I believe the argument is that one ideology is more prone to the bias than the other. Can you present a case that states the bias is equal ?

My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature. Because of this, ideologues are more likely to believe they are more objective about themselves than those with whom they disagree, and believe that those who disagree with them are more biased.

"My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature."

In that case, you'd be incorrect, and missed the import of the thread.
The political ideologies of the Left are based on the belief that government can change human nature.
Those of the Founders, conservatives, see the need for ways to channel and maintain limits on the indelible, the eternal, human nature.
Thus, the checks and balances that they tried to instill.....defeated by the Left with the aid of a corrupt judiciary.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton

 

[Toro]

I believe the argument is that one ideology is more prone to the bias than the other. Can you present a case that states the bias is equal ?

My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature. Because of this, ideologues are more likely to believe they are more objective about themselves than those with whom they disagree, and believe that those who disagree with them are more biased.

"My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature."

In that case, you'd be incorrect, and missed the import of the thread.

Are you saying that conservatives aren't human and subject to human nature?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

If you weren't in a tiny pathetic minority of rightwing extremists, you could probably get lots of your wishes done democratically,

but, ironically, if your wishes were democratically achievable, you obviously wouldn't be in the tiny pathetic rightwing minority.

Well, given the fact that I'm light years smarter than you, what does that say about the mobocracy . . . er . . . the democracy of scared shitless conformists like you? As Nietzsche pointed out all those many years ago, democracy is the pitchfork of the maddening crowd. It's constituents are the patron saints of demagoguery and the banality of the corralled and thoroughly indoctrinated masses.

We get that conservatives despise democratic government. No need to drone on about it.

Right. My bad. You silly children of America's decline and fall tendered your post as an insult . . . not a compliment owing to my learned and superior taste for the limited and divided government of inalienable human rights.

Carry on. . . .

 

[PoliticalChic]

My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature. Because of this, ideologues are more likely to believe they are more objective about themselves than those with whom they disagree, and believe that those who disagree with them are more biased.

"My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature."

In that case, you'd be incorrect, and missed the import of the thread.

Are you saying that conservatives aren't human and subject to human nature?

I think I was pretty clear in what I am saying.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Well, given the fact that I'm light years smarter than you, what does that say about the mobocracy . . . er . . . the democracy of scared shitless conformists like you? As Nietzsche pointed out all those many years ago, democracy is the pitchfork of the maddening crowd. It's constituents are the patron saints of demagoguery and the banality of the corralled and thoroughly indoctrinated masses.

We get that conservatives despise democratic government. No need to drone on about it.

Right. My bad. You silly children of America's decline and fall tendered your post as an insult . . . not a compliment owing to my learned and superior taste for the limited and divided government of inalienable human rights.

Carry on. . . .

It's the government that protects your rights. It's the power of the big central government to do such things as overturn unconstitutional gun control laws passed by the smaller governments of the states and localities that protects your rights. You owe the protection of your rights to big government.

 

[NYcarbineer]

"...unrestrained exercise of power...."


Bingo!

So you do want to take the position that the Congress and the Supreme Court have no power to restrain the executive branch?

Can you cite any sources from your vast library of books you've pretended to have read to support that assertion?

".... you've pretended to have read...."

See, nycreature.....that's what's meant by 'we can only judge others by ourselves.'




I've posted many OPs to prove exactly that.....the Cliff Notes version is this: in direct opposition to the aims of the Founders, federalism, the three federal branches have worked assiduously to leave the states as mere agencies of the federal government.





In the vain hope that there may be actual education in your future, begin your research with this:

In 1801, John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice, and he consistently tried to reduce any limits on federal power. Case in point, in the 1821 decision in Cohens v. Virginia, he found that the 11th amendment only banned suits against states that were initiated in federal courts.

Nonsense: this was not the intent of the amendment, but rather an intent to extend the jurisdiction of the federal courts and the federal government.


Marshall represents a pivotal point in the pirating of power by the federal government.

It's funny how it's always some sort of crime when things don't go the way of the rightwing extremists like you.

You get to vote every year. Quit complaining that there's not some sort of magic wand that can give conservatives the government they can't get democratically.

 

[NYcarbineer]

On the contrary, liberals know exactly how the real world works, which is why they're the greatest advocates and defenders of liberty.

Needless to say liberals are most often defending citizens' civil rights from conservatives hostile to expressions of individual liberty.

Liberals are insane relativists. Progressives could never take the ideas of the Declaration and Constitution seriously for many of the same reasons that Obama cannot ultimately take them seriously. Not right but historical might was the Progressives’ true focus.

"Not right but historical might was the Progressives’ true focus."

And, their provenance!




16. When historians say ‘modern,’ they generally men the period beginning with the Enlightenment. In fact, many thinkers were so impressed with the scientific revolution that they began to regard science as the sole source of truth.

America was not based on the Enlightenment....the French Revolution was! The difference is the understanding of the nature of man: in the view of the American Revolution, people are not considered to be basically good, and, therefore, the necessity of checks and balances.

a. Look at the result of the two views: " One of the most advanced, sophisticated nations of the 18th century kills 600,000 citizens- many of it’s most valuable citizens, plus some 145,000 flee the country..."
Schom, “Napoleon Bonaparte,” p. 253.

b. "That's in a country with between 24 and 26 million people, about the current population of Texas. In terms of population loss, that would be the equalivalent of the United States having a 9/11 attack every day for seven years."
Coulter, "Demonic," p. 266.





17. It is more than passing interesting that liberals, whose history is that of the French Revolution, attempt to hide this by trying to portray the American Revolution as their inception. Let’s see, the American Revolution had the Minutemen, the ride of Paul Revere, the Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence and the Liberty Bell.

The French Revolution is identified by the Great Fear, the storming of the Bastille, the food riots, the march on Versailles, the Day of the Daggers, the de-Christianization campaign, the September Massacres, the beheading of Louis XVI, the beheading of Marie Antoinette, the Reign of Terror, then the guillotining of one revolutionary after another, until Robespierre got the “national razor.” That is, not including various lynchings, assassinations, insurrections….this was the four-year period known as the French Revolution.
Coulter, "Demonic," chapter six



a. The excesses, and thousands upon thousands of deaths and mutilations take no back seat to the Russian revolution, or Mao’s mayhem. This was not a revolution that was likely to end, as the American Revolution did, with the motto “Annuit Coepis” (He [God] has favored our undertakings) on its national seal.
Ibid.




French Revolution, Stalin, Mao.....so much in common with modern Liberals......

You left out the genocide of the American Indian tribes in your equation.

 

[PoliticalChic]

We get that conservatives despise democratic government. No need to drone on about it.

Right. My bad. You silly children of America's decline and fall tendered your post as an insult . . . not a compliment owing to my learned and superior taste for the limited and divided government of inalienable human rights.

Carry on. . . .

It's the government that protects your rights. It's the power of the big central government to do such things as overturn unconstitutional gun control laws passed by the smaller governments of the states and localities that protects your rights. You owe the protection of your rights to big government.

1. "Unalienable: incapable of being alienated, that is, sold and transferred." Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, page 1523:
You can not surrender, sell or transfer unalienable rights, they are a gift from the creator to the individual and can not under any circumstances be surrendered or taken. All individual's have unalienable rights.
Inalienable rights: Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights. Morrison v. State, Mo. App., 252 S.W.2d 97, 101.



2. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE


3. Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;' and to 'secure,' not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. That property which a man has honestly acquired he retains full control of, subject to these limitations: First, that he shall not use it to his neighbor's injury, and that does not mean that he must use it for his neighbor's benefit; second, that if the devotes it to a public use, he gives to the public a right to control that use; and third, that whenever the public needs require, the public may take it upon payment of due compensation. BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)


4. "Burlamaqui (Politic c. #, . 15) defines natural liberty as "the right which nature gives to all mankind of disposing of their persons and property after the manner they may judge most consonant to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and so as not to interfere with an equal exercise of the same rights by other men;" and therefore it has been justly said, that "absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the right of personal security--the right of personal liberty--and the right to acquire and enjoy property. These rights have been justly considered and frequently declared by the people of this country to be natural, inherent, and unalienable." Potter's Dwarris, ch. 13, p. 429.
Unalienable Rights vs Inalienable Rights




Progressives/Liberals deny mankind these rights.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So you do want to take the position that the Congress and the Supreme Court have no power to restrain the executive branch?

Can you cite any sources from your vast library of books you've pretended to have read to support that assertion?

".... you've pretended to have read...."

See, nycreature.....that's what's meant by 'we can only judge others by ourselves.'




I've posted many OPs to prove exactly that.....the Cliff Notes version is this: in direct opposition to the aims of the Founders, federalism, the three federal branches have worked assiduously to leave the states as mere agencies of the federal government.





In the vain hope that there may be actual education in your future, begin your research with this:

In 1801, John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice, and he consistently tried to reduce any limits on federal power. Case in point, in the 1821 decision in Cohens v. Virginia, he found that the 11th amendment only banned suits against states that were initiated in federal courts.

Nonsense: this was not the intent of the amendment, but rather an intent to extend the jurisdiction of the federal courts and the federal government.


Marshall represents a pivotal point in the pirating of power by the federal government.

It's funny how it's always some sort of crime when things don't go the way of the rightwing extremists like you.

You get to vote every year. Quit complaining that there's not some sort of magic wand that can give conservatives the government they can't get democratically.

1. "It's funny how it's always some sort of crime when things don't go the way of the rightwing extremists like you."

You have it so backwards that one need be dyslexic to understand you.

This conservative identifies crimes committed and the collaborators and accessories....i.e., you.




2. "....rightwing extremists like you."


My views center on individualism, free markets, and limited constitutional government.

Which of those are extremist views?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Liberals are insane relativists. Progressives could never take the ideas of the Declaration and Constitution seriously for many of the same reasons that Obama cannot ultimately take them seriously. Not right but historical might was the Progressives’ true focus.

"Not right but historical might was the Progressives’ true focus."

And, their provenance!




16. When historians say ‘modern,’ they generally men the period beginning with the Enlightenment. In fact, many thinkers were so impressed with the scientific revolution that they began to regard science as the sole source of truth.

America was not based on the Enlightenment....the French Revolution was! The difference is the understanding of the nature of man: in the view of the American Revolution, people are not considered to be basically good, and, therefore, the necessity of checks and balances.

a. Look at the result of the two views: " One of the most advanced, sophisticated nations of the 18th century kills 600,000 citizens- many of it’s most valuable citizens, plus some 145,000 flee the country..."
Schom, “Napoleon Bonaparte,” p. 253.

b. "That's in a country with between 24 and 26 million people, about the current population of Texas. In terms of population loss, that would be the equalivalent of the United States having a 9/11 attack every day for seven years."
Coulter, "Demonic," p. 266.





17. It is more than passing interesting that liberals, whose history is that of the French Revolution, attempt to hide this by trying to portray the American Revolution as their inception. Let’s see, the American Revolution had the Minutemen, the ride of Paul Revere, the Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence and the Liberty Bell.

The French Revolution is identified by the Great Fear, the storming of the Bastille, the food riots, the march on Versailles, the Day of the Daggers, the de-Christianization campaign, the September Massacres, the beheading of Louis XVI, the beheading of Marie Antoinette, the Reign of Terror, then the guillotining of one revolutionary after another, until Robespierre got the “national razor.” That is, not including various lynchings, assassinations, insurrections….this was the four-year period known as the French Revolution.
Coulter, "Demonic," chapter six



a. The excesses, and thousands upon thousands of deaths and mutilations take no back seat to the Russian revolution, or Mao’s mayhem. This was not a revolution that was likely to end, as the American Revolution did, with the motto “Annuit Coepis” (He [God] has favored our undertakings) on its national seal.
Ibid.




French Revolution, Stalin, Mao.....so much in common with modern Liberals......

You left out the genocide of the American Indian tribes in your equation.

Did I mention that you are either terminally stupid or a congenital liar?


There was never a "genocide of the American Indian tribes."


1. The decimation of Indian populations stemmed only rarely from massacres or military actions, but the majority of Indian deaths came from infectious disease. There is the romanticized view that paints the settlers as barbaric, and the Indians as peaceful victims.

a. Genocide means deliberate and systematic. As described by the UN Convention, Article II, it involves “ a series of brutal acts committed with intent to destroy, …a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such.”



2. Guenter Lewy (born 1923, Germany) is an author and historian and a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts. In September 2004, Lewy published an essay entitled "Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide ?" in which he says [Ward] Churchill's assertion that the U.S. Army intentionally spread smallpox among American Indians by distributing infected blankets in 1837 is false. Lewy calls Churchill's claim of 100,000 deaths from the incident "obviously absurd".


3. During the 4 centuries following European entry into North America, Indian population fell. By the beginning of the 20th Century, officials found only 250,000 Indians in the territory of the US, as opposed to 2,476,000 identified as “American Indians or Alaska Natives” in the 2000 census. Scholars estimate pre-Columbian North American population range from 1.2 million (1928 tribe-by-tribe assessment) up to 20 million by activists.

Collectively these data suggest that population numbered about 1,894,350 at about A.D. 1500. Epidemics and other factors reduced this number to only 530,000 by 1900. Modern data suggest that by 1985 population size has increased to over 2.5 million.
North American Indian population size, A.D. 1500 to 1985 - Ubelaker - 2005 - American Journal of Physical Anthropology - Wiley Online Library


The reported population of Native Americans by the most recent Census has soared more than 1000% since 1900, over 3 times that of the US as a whole. A reasonable explanation is that intermarriage and assimilation reveal that a portion of the reported disappearance of native Americans may be that many still exist but in a different description..

"...According to 2008 US Census projections, those who are Native American and Alaska Natives alone number 3.08 million of the total US population of 304 million, or 1.01 percent of the nation's entire population. Those who are Native American alone or in combination with other races measure as 4.86 million individuals,..."
Modern social statistics of Native Americans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



4. Whatever the original number, historians agree that infectious disease brought about 75-95% decline after European settlement began.

Jared Mason Diamond is an American geographer, evolutionary biologist, physiologist, lecturer, and nonfiction author. Diamond works as a professor of geography and physiology at UCLA. He is best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Guns, Germs, and Steel," which also won the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, in which he states “diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves…[including] smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus…”




Any moron who claims that those deaths can be classified as "genocide" must also believe that the Black Plague that decimated Europe was also genocide.

Raise your paw.

 

[Toro]

"My case is that all ideologues are human and thus subject to human nature."

In that case, you'd be incorrect, and missed the import of the thread.

Are you saying that conservatives aren't human and subject to human nature?

I think I was pretty clear in what I am saying.

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Are you saying that conservatives aren't human and subject to human nature?

I think I was pretty clear in what I am saying.

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Clarify for me....is this your attempt to excuse your misunderstanding....or are you performing these contortions to burnish some credentials of being even-handed?

 

[Toro]

I think I was pretty clear in what I am saying.

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Clarify for me....is this your attempt to excuse your misunderstanding....or are you performing these contortions to burnish some credentials of being even-handed?

Of course I'm biased. I'm human. But I'm not denying that I'm not. You, on the other hand, claimed I was incorrect when I wrote that ideologues are subject to human nature, implying that you are not.

In two sentences, you made a broad sweeping generalization about human nature that cast your ideological beliefs in a favourable light while discrediting those beliefs with which you disagree. I would expect you to do that. Leftists do the same thing. Leftists would argue that conservatives also don't understand human behavior, and would be just as wrong. The world is more nuanced than such simplistic bromides. No one political ideology has a monopoly on truth about human nature.

For example, you said that "The political ideologies of the Left are based on the belief that government can change human nature." Leftists would argue that their ideology is based on adapting to human nature. One of the greatest human needs is safety and security. Leftists would argue that a social safety net meets this very basic need. And, in this case, they would be correct. A social safety net means that at the very least, people would have some income that they can use for food, shelter and clothing, which meets the very basic human need for safety and security.

Of course, the clever conservative would now respond by saying that a social safety net makes people lazy. And, at some level, they are correct. When the social safety net is too generous, it does make people lazy, something Leftists tend to dismiss.

But that's the point I was trying to make. When one looks through an ideological lens, one will emphasize whatever reinforces one's own biases. That's human nature. The OP is no different.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Clarify for me....is this your attempt to excuse your misunderstanding....or are you performing these contortions to burnish some credentials of being even-handed?

Of course I'm biased. I'm human. But I'm not denying that I'm not. You, on the other hand, claimed I was incorrect when I wrote that ideologues are subject to human nature, implying that you are not.

In two sentences, you made a broad sweeping generalization about human nature that cast your ideological beliefs in a favourable light while discrediting those beliefs with which you disagree. I would expect you to do that. Leftists do the same thing. Leftists would argue that conservatives also don't understand human behavior, and would be just as wrong. The world is more nuanced than such simplistic bromides. No one political ideology has a monopoly on truth about human nature.

For example, you said that "The political ideologies of the Left are based on the belief that government can change human nature." Leftists would argue that their ideology is based on adapting to human nature. One of the greatest human needs is safety and security. Leftists would argue that a social safety net meets this very basic need. And, in this case, they would be correct. A social safety net means that at the very least, people would have some income that they can use for food, shelter and clothing, which meets the very basic human need for safety and security.

Of course, the clever conservative would now respond by saying that a social safety net makes people lazy. And, at some level, they are correct. When the social safety net is too generous, it does make people lazy, something Leftists tend to dismiss.

But that's the point I was trying to make. When one looks through an ideological lens, one will emphasize whatever reinforces one's own biases. That's human nature. The OP is no different.

Neat word salad.....having nothing to do with what I said.

1. My claim is that the Founders, classical liberals, Bible believers, understood that humans are not angels.
They attempted to create a document memorializing same, and adjusting for it via checks and balances.


2. Liberals, Progressives function based on the mistaken belief that human nature can be perfected, changed via the 'correct' form of government, and that government should be based on 'honorable' bureaucrats and politicians.
That is the basis for ignoring the actual Constitution.



I have documented same throughout this thread.





3 " "The political ideologies of the Left are based on the belief that government can change human nature." Leftists would argue that their ideology is based on adapting to human nature.

Wrong.


This is an earlier post:

11. Leftists of all stripes view human nature as plastic, able to be molded by the "right" kind of government.....no matter the human cost.

a. “The New Soviet man or New Soviet person (Russian: новый советский челове&#1082, as postulated by the ideologists of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was an archetype of a person with certain qualities that were said to be emerging as dominant among all citizens of the Soviet Union, irrespective of the country's long-standing cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, creating a single Soviet people, Soviet nation.[1] New Soviet man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



b. Leon Trotsky wrote in his Literature and Revolution [2] :

"The human species, the sluggish Homo sapiens, will once again enter the stage of radical reconstruction and become in his own hands the object of the most complex methods of artificial selection and psychophysical training... Man will make it his goal...to create a higher sociobiological type, a superman, if you will"
New Soviet man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



c. In 1969, Hillary Rodham gave the student commencement address at Wellesley in which she said that “ for too long our leaders have used politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible….We’re not interested in social reconstruction; it’s human reconstruction.”
-http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/1969/053169hillary.html



Stalin, Lenin, Hillary.....all agree: change human nature.





12. How many times is that philosophy going to be tried.....it has cost over 100 million slaughtered during the last century alone.....


Does it work?

“Culture is a stubborn opponent. The Soviet Union attempted to create the New Soviet Man with gulags, psychiatric hospitals, and firing squads for seventy years and succeeded only in producing a more corrupt culture.”
Bork, “Slouching Toward Gomorrah,” p. 198